Three die in Sunday afternoon pier tragedy

In less sad circumstances it would be a place to go to look at the scenery. With the limestone hills of the Burren to the southwest and Black Head beyond, Tarrea pier on Kinvarra Bay has a dramatic backdrop.

It was once one of those secret inlets - a little paradise on the road between Kilcolgan and Kinvara village - but has been "discovered" in recent years.

Yesterday, the Sunday afternoon traffic wasn't out to view the landscape. People came, some with carloads of children, to stare in awe at the aftermath of a simple tragedy.

However, for most of them, by early afternoon there was little to see, apart from idle lobster pots and floats, a digger, and Portakabins erected for dredging work which was due to begin today. Quickly and quietly, the emergency services had taken the evidence away.

Shortly after 1 p.m. a woman had driven up to the pier at speed in a Renault 19. It was a beautiful day, dry and clear with a southwesterly breeze, with the sun casting light around sea cages anchored on the water beyond.

Mr Tony Jordan, a painter and decorator, who lives a mile away in Toureen, was out for a walk. He noticed the car. The tide was coming in at the time.

The woman parked briefly about 10 yards from the pier edge. She got out and walked towards the water. She returned, checked her two children in the vehicle, and drove on.

She left skid marks on the gravel as she put her foot down. The car travelled through the air about 10 feet before hitting the water. "I saw it gradually sinking," Mr Jordan said.

He raced to a bungalow on a rise nearby and dialled 999. Garda Michael Harte of Gort was one of the first on the scene after the emergency call, logged at 1.17 p.m.

A local diver, Mr Eugene Houlihan, pulled two bodies out, with the help of the Galway inshore lifeboat and the Gort and Galway fire brigades.

The Irish Coastguard's Doolin coast and cliff rescue unit was also called out, but it was all over by the time it arrived. Efforts were made to resuscitate the two, and they were rushed to University College Hospital, Galway, but emergency medical assistance was in vain. Shortly after 4 p.m. it was confirmed that they had died.

A third body, that of a child, could be removed only after the car had been pushed to shallower water, with the help of a local crane company. The child was dead on arrival at UCHG.

Gardai believe the three occupants had been in the water, about nine feet deep, for the best part of an hour.

Supt Paul Mockler said it was a shocking event, and gardai were trying to establish a cause. "We were devastated, that something like this could happen on a lovely Sunday afternoon," Mr Jordan said.

A Gort fire brigade official was visibly upset. He said he had been on the job for 19 years and had hoped he would never have to deal with the death of a child.